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Begin forwarded message:

> Subject: Calls for Papers, Anthropology Conference on Social Support,
> 3-5 July 2008
>
>
> Dear Madam or Sir,
>
> I am sending this call for papers for an anthropological conference  
> that
> will be held at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in  
> July
> 2008. This may be of interest to members and students of your
> department. I would much appreciate it if you could put the call for
> papers on the department's notice board.
>
> With best wishes,
> Markus Schlecker
>
>
>
> Markus Schlecker
> Research Fellow
> Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
> Advokatenweg 36
> D-06114 Halle, Germany
> (on fieldwork leave until 30 September 2007)

Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, May 2007
Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
CALL FOR PAPERS
Conference
"Who cares ... and how? An anthropological inquiry into support"
3 - 5 July 2008
Organisers: Markus Schlecker and Friederike Fleischer
Venue: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale,  
Germany
The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Department II,  
invites participants to a
conference from the 3 – 5 July 2008 at the Max Planck Institute for  
Social Anthropology,
Halle, Germany, to discuss and develop anthropological approaches to  
the study of social
support.
Ethnographic accounts of life under state socialism offer an  
instructive case of human
ingenuity in the face of pervasive shortage. The ‘supplier state’  
that sought to monopolise
channels of support in many cases failed to do so thereby  
facilitating the role of personal
networks of support. In fact, the latter came to permeate the state  
to such a degree that it
became a resource in itself, to be distributed through these  
networks. Yet the supplier state
also provided a sense of stability and security, of guaranteed,  
however insufficient, supplies.
For the last two decades, whether in Eastern Europe, China or  
Vietnam, many have painfully
experienced the erosion of this basic sense of being looked after  
‘from cradle to grave’.
Today, the welfare states of late industrial nations in Europe and  
North America are also
undergoing far-reaching reforms. There, high levels of unemployment,  
ageing populations
and cuts in social benefits also erode a sense of stability and  
security. To what extent is the
market here an alternative to personal networks? Clearly, one can  
observe the
“commoditisation of support”, as part of an ever expanding service  
economy. This is not
limited to Europe and North America but can also be seen elsewhere.  
As a consequence, in
many parts of the world the social gap between those who can afford  
‘support for money’ and
those who cannot is widening.
As anthropologists, we are interested in people’s inventiveness in  
organising support and
the meanings they afford these practices. What can we learn from  
places where there is no
welfare state? How are notions and moral concepts of support acted  
out in daily life? What
kinds of sources and resources of support are mobilised? Support can  
mean a state
providing for child care or old age, but also a friend offering words  
of consolation, relatives
lending money, a citizen donating blood, a deity protecting a village  
or a group of elderly
offering sociability. Is support always necessarily serious business?  
Can support not be
organised through play? Local notions and modalities of support will  
also reflect and shape
ideas of the person and its efficacy. The ideal of individual self- 
reliance in the West is but one
example.
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, May 2007
Social support has received attention mainly from sociologists and  
psychologists,
especially in health studies and social network analyses. In  
anthropology, it has featured only
marginally and tended to be conceptualised as simply a form of  
transaction. It is one major
aim of this conference to examine and account for the continuities  
and discontinuities
between support and other kinds of transactions. As a broad frame for  
our anthropological
enquiry into support, we suggest three terms: paternalism, mutuality  
and charity. These are
meant primarily as guidance for contributors. In a given setting, any  
or all three of these
modalities may be at play. Our first term, ‘paternalism’, makes  
reference to top-down
systems of support, be it a bureaucratic welfare state or a locally  
operating racketeering
group. Apart from paternalism, we suggest ‘mutuality’, where support  
occurs within less or
not hierarchically structured relationships. Finally, ‘charity’ is  
intended to capture those forms
of support that are locally considered ‘interest-free’. Participants  
are invited to engage
critically with these terms and probe their utility.
The issue of support often arises in the context of dramatic life  
events. Anthropological
studies of life histories, social memory and temporality promise to  
be one important field
here. But legal anthropology, as for instance Keebet and Franz von  
Benda-Beckmann have
shown, can also be a productive perspective on social support. And of  
course the discipline’s
long-standing interest in gift exchange seems essential for any study  
of the giving and
receiving of support. These three domains of inquiry in anthropology  
are not meant to be
exhaustive. We invite contributions from a wide range of regional and  
thematic areas in
anthropology so as to initiate a creative dialogue where  
anthropological knowledge and
models from one domain can help to shed light on issues of support in  
another.
Please submit an abstract of not more than 200 words by 30th November  
2007 at the latest
to:
Markus Schlecker, e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Friederike Fleischer, e-mail: [log in to unmask]



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